Algal biodiesel, 20-year payback? New KSU study says so
In Kansas, a new study from Kansas State University shows that commercial-scale algae biodiesel production pose a lot of scientific and economic challenges that may keep the technology from taking off. Using carbon mass balance, the study showed that from a purely technical standpoint, producing algae-based biodiesel in a sustainable way works — but not to the extent needed to eliminate dependence on petroleum diesel.
With sustainability the goal, the team found that under the most optimal and optimistic conditions, the amount of algae diesel produced per day was drastically lower than the projected ideal quantities from many algae production concepts: only about 50g per square meter per day rather than the 200g-500g needed to create real economies of scale. They determined it would take 11 square miles of open ponds making 14,000 tons of algae a day to replace 50 million gallons of petroleum diesel per year — about 0.1 percent of the U.S. annual diesel consumption.
All added up, the additional infrastructure required in order to produce the algae likely may the production economics fail with as much as a 20-year payback on investment, the researchers said.
However, the research release revealed that the modeled algae farm would produce only 10 gallons of biodiesel per ton of algae, consistent with a lipid content of under 5 percent. Most algal ventures begin with a baseline of 25 grams per square meter per day and a 25 percent lipid content, and improve from there.
Category: Research
